Siege of Vicksburg
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50 free Siege of Vicksburg trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The siege of Vicksburg decided who controlled the Mississippi River and, with it, the shape of the American Civil War. For weeks in the summer of 1863, Ulysses S. Grant's army ringed a fortified river town while its soldiers and civilians ran short of almost everything. This quiz covers the battle of Vicksburg the way a good tour guide would: the campaign that led to the trenches, the commanders on both sides, daily life under the shelling, the surrender and what it meant for the war. It also collects the fun facts people remember, from unusual regimental mascots to the stories behind the monuments in the national military park, plus a few surprises about the city's life before and after the war. It suits history students, Civil War buffs and anyone planning a visit to the battlefield. Every question comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the story even when you miss.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Old Douglas, the 43rd Mississippi Infantry's mascot killed by Union sharpshooters at Vicksburg, was what kind of animal?
A camel
A camel carried the regimental band's instruments, and his comrades were so angry at his death that an officer sent six of his best snipers after the man who shot him.
Q 02Which soft drink was bottled for the very first time by Vicksburg candy merchant Joseph Biedenharn in the 1890s?
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola was sold only at soda fountains until then. By coincidence its inventor, John S. Pemberton, shared a surname with the general who surrendered Vicksburg.
Q 03With newsprint gone during the siege, Vicksburg's Daily Citizen newspaper was printed on what household material?
Wallpaper
Wallpaper editions were still set in type when the city fell, so Union soldiers added a note about the end of the siege and ran off an edition of their own.
Q 04Vicksburg's Confederate garrison surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant on which holiday, hoping the date would soften terms?
Independence Day
Independence Day gave rise to a folk tradition that Vicksburg then refused to celebrate the holiday until World War II, though large celebrations were in fact held there by 1907.
Q 05Because residents dug hundreds of caves to escape shelling, Union soldiers gave besieged Vicksburg which nickname?
Prairie Dog Village
Prairie Dog Village had more than 500 caves, many fitted out with rugs, furniture and pictures, and fewer than a dozen townspeople are known to have been killed.
Q 06The Union navy's fake ironclad, sent downriver in the Vicksburg campaign, used what small building as its pilothouse?
An outhouse
An outhouse sat on a barge with log cannons and barrel smokestacks. The dummy cost under $9 and scared Confederate salvagers into blowing up a captured gunboat.
Q 07Vicksburg fell a day after Robert E. Lee lost which battle, a pair often called the war's turning point?
Gettysburg
Gettysburg was George Meade's victory in the East, and Grant's success on the river a day later meant the North celebrated two great wins almost at once.
Q 08Old Abe, the 8th Wisconsin Infantry mascot whose statue tops the Wisconsin memorial at Vicksburg, was what animal?
A bald eagle
A bald eagle bought for $2.50, Old Abe rode into battle on a special perch and later inspired the screaming eagle insignia of the Army's 101st Airborne Division.
Q 09Which American writer later interviewed a Vicksburg citizen about sheltering in caves during the siege?
Mark Twain
Mark Twain, a former Mississippi riverboat pilot, was told that twenty or more people sometimes packed into a single cave, with air so foul that a candle would not stay lit.
Q 10Abraham Lincoln said the war could never end until Vicksburg, which he called by what name, was in his pocket?
The key
The key was Lincoln's word because guns on the bluffs closed the river to Union shipping while horses, cattle and reinforcements kept crossing to the Confederacy from the west.
Q 11Who called Vicksburg the nail head that held the South's two halves together?
Jefferson Davis
Jefferson Davis later blamed the loss on a want of provisions inside the city and a general outside it who wouldn't fight.
Q 12Vicksburg's bluff-top defenses earned the city a nickname as which famous fortress "of the Confederacy"?
Gibraltar
Gibraltar suited a town ringed by more than six miles of forts, trenches and redoubts on steep slopes that any attacker had to climb under fire.
Q 13Before turning west toward Vicksburg, Ulysses S. Grant's army captured which Mississippi city in May 1863?
Jackson
Jackson, the state capital, fell on May 14, forcing Pemberton to withdraw westward, and William T. Sherman had to capture the city a second time that July once the siege was over.
Q 21Which state's Vicksburg memorial pairs statues of the Civil War's two rival presidents, both of them born there?
Kentucky
Kentucky sent sons to both armies, so its memorial, dedicated in 2001, stands on an avenue that runs between the old Union and Confederate lines.
Q 22Vicksburg's Illinois Memorial, with one step for each day of the siege, was modeled on which ancient building?
The Pantheon
The Pantheon in Rome inspired the design, and 60 bronze tablets inside name all 36,325 Illinois soldiers who took part in the campaign.
Q 23Orion Howe, 14, earned the Medal of Honor at Vicksburg while serving the 55th Illinois Infantry in which role?
Drummer boy
Q 14Rather than ship 30,000 Confederates to prison camps, what did Ulysses S. Grant do with Vicksburg's garrison?
Paroled them
Paroled them, expecting the starving men to carry the stigma of defeat home to the rest of the Confederacy. Instead many were exchanged and fighting again within months.
Q 15Ulysses S. Grant first demanded unconditional surrender at Vicksburg, as he had the year before at which stronghold?
Fort Donelson
Fort Donelson's blunt terms had earned him the nickname Unconditional Surrender Grant, but at Vicksburg the demand was rebuffed and he had to offer something gentler.
Q 16Which Union ironclad, sunk by a mine north of Vicksburg in 1862, is now displayed at Vicksburg National Military Park?
USS Cairo
USS Cairo sank in 12 minutes after volunteers hidden behind the riverbank set off the mine, and the gunboat stayed on the bottom until it was raised in 1964.
Q 17Benjamin Grierson, whose long cavalry raid through Mississippi distracted Vicksburg's defenders, had what peacetime job?
Music teacher
Music teacher Grierson was kicked and nearly killed by a horse at the age of eight and feared the animals, yet he volunteered for the cavalry and rose to major general.
Q 18The Union strategy that Vicksburg's fall helped complete, a blockade plus river control, was nicknamed for which snake?
Anaconda
Anaconda began as a jibe: generals who wanted a faster war mocked Winfield Scott's patient blockade as the coils of a snake slowly suffocating its victim.
Q 19Which Louisiana river stronghold surrendered five days after Vicksburg, giving the Union the whole Mississippi?
Port Hudson
Port Hudson gave up only after its commander learned that Vicksburg had fallen. Its 48-day siege was the longest in American military history up to that point.
Q 20Confederate general John C. Pemberton, who defended Vicksburg against Ulysses S. Grant, was born in which Northern city?
Philadelphia
Philadelphia was home to a family that pleaded with him to stay loyal. He sided with the South under the influence of his Virginia-born wife, while two younger brothers fought for the Union.
Drummer boy Howe, already badly wounded, stayed on the field under heavy fire until he had told General Sherman that his regiment needed cartridges.
Q 24Which Western star led the cast of The Horse Soldiers, a film inspired by Grierson's Raid in the Vicksburg campaign?
John Wayne
John Wayne played a cavalry commander, a railroad engineer by trade, who is sent behind the lines to wreck the Confederate supply depot for Vicksburg at Newton Station.
Q 25At Milliken's Bend during the Vicksburg siege, which newly recruited Union soldiers fought off a brigade of Texans?
African Americans
African Americans in a newly raised brigade held on through close-quarters fighting until a Union gunboat halted the attack, one of the first actions in which Black soldiers fought.
Q 26Which relative of Ulysses S. Grant rode with the army toward Vicksburg and was shot in the leg by a sharpshooter?
His son
His son Fred, then 12, kept putting himself in harm's way and was hit while following retreating Confederates after the fight at Big Black River Bridge.
Q 27Which Confederate general, expected to march to Vicksburg's rescue with a second army, never broke the siege?
Joseph E. Johnston
Joseph E. Johnston had urged Pemberton to abandon the city and save his troops. He finally reached the Big Black River on July 1, then fell back once the garrison gave up.
Q 28Which Union admiral slipped gunboats and transports past Vicksburg's guns on a moonless April night in 1863?
David D. Porter
David D. Porter sent seven gunboats and three transports downriver with noise and lights kept to a minimum, giving Grant the boats to ferry his army across below the city.
Q 29Union troops spent months digging what across the peninsula facing Vicksburg, hoping ships could avoid the city's guns?
A canal
A canal was meant to shift the river itself. Neither Grant nor Sherman had any faith in it, but the scheme was a favorite of Lincoln's and it kept idle soldiers busy.
Q 30After the Mississippi shifted away from Vicksburg in 1876, engineers diverted which waterway to restore the waterfront?
The Yazoo
The Yazoo has run past the city since 1903, ending a spell of more than two decades in which the old steamboat town had no working harbor.